Severe Weather in New Zealand

Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and the Isssshhh

Maaaaan, damnses weather, you scary!

Yous guyses know what a zornado es? And no... nots zat sharknados craps. Jeebus.. I mayses of watched it but that shiz could never happens! Everyone knows sharks are afraid of heights so they would never get caught up in a tornado let alone bite the shiz outta peoples while spinning around uber fast. 

 ..... however...................

...........



 ....................  Baboonami is real! 

Anywho,  A tornado is a rapidly rotating narrow region of low pressure.

Tornadoes first start as body of air just rolling around all stupid on the ground due vertical wind shear which is a gradient/ difference in winds speed and direction.

With a vertical shear the difference is between air aloft and surface winds.

 This rotating mass then is lifted off the ground by an updraft of a thunderstorm and once it is nearly vertical it is considered a mesocyclone.

This vertical cylinder of air narrows into a funnel cloud and once it touches the surface it is considered a tornado.

Funny, spellcheck thinks i meant to spell lonesomeness instead of mesocyclone...

This is pretty cool though.

So, in the US tornadoes move from southwest to south east. As with most weather movements and stuffs this movement is due to our prevailing westerly winds and also a jet stream.


Tornadoes also happen in New Zealand, hey what do ya know... And they are associated with a band of thunder storms (squall lines) that are balls deep in a strong unstable pre-frontal northwesterly flow. There's about 7 moderate to strong tornadoes in New Zealand a year.





Now for the US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)There an average of 1000+ tornadoes a year!

Up thurr is a map detailing the hotpots of tornado occurrences.

Areas shaded in orange are the most prone to have tornadoes and there that little big orangy thing to the southeast is New Zealand. We be feeling hot hot hot!

Now look at this ish. This here picture shows that tornadoes have increased over the years!

Oh no its climate change again! Oh wait, maybe not. Actually this increase may mostly be due to an increased ability to observe tornadoes with uber hitech scifi technology we have these days.

Hurricanes

The three main requirements for hurricane formation is a warm ocean temperature of greater than 80 degrees F (27C) because ya need evap.

A deepwarm ocean layer of ~200m in depth cuz when wind pulls up water you still gots that warm ish.

And that ole crazy Coriolis is needed to create that spin but only between greater than 5 North and 5 South cuz Coriolis is a weak mofo at the equator it's his kryptotonanight.

New Zealand does satisfy the requirement for Coriolis effect but does not satisfy the other two as the country lies further south so the ocean temps are not as warm and deep like countries between the equator and 20N, S.

Hurricanes typically form in three main regions where they also referred to as different names. Saaay whhaaaa?





 In the Atlantic and East Pacific they are called hurricanes; in the Indian Ocean near Australia, cyclones; off the coast of China and Indonesia, typhoons.

Hurricane, Cyclone, Typhoon, Whatever map

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/en/cyclone_map_large.en.gif

As you can see in the diaphragm, hurricanes in 'Murica typically move north east due to the Toyota Corrolla effect pulling it north and the westerlies blowing it east. 


The average number of hurricanes that hit New Zealand (stop the violence :/ ) is 0 as Hurricanes do not happen in New Zealand.

They can occasionally get hit by the remnants of a hurricane during the months April-December where the ocean temperatures are higher around the islands. Mostly though, hurricanes just peter out before they come close to land.

Compare this to number to the US, which has an average around 1.75 hurricanes per year according to the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.


Also, checkout this insane footage of a HURRICANE doing damage in New Zealand!!!

Daily Weather in New Zealand

In my blog of the most epic proscratination skills  i will bust out a 3‐day forecast that will cover the days 4/4/15 to 4/6/15.

The forecasted high...


...for my first day is a quite enjoyable 68 F, which is freezing as balls to me but most mainlanders would love that ish. The forecasted low is 63 F with about 10% chance of precipitation during the day and night.

The forecasted high for my second day is 64 F with a forecasted low of 54...

... This time there is a 10% chance of precipitation but only in the day. Hope they mean rain and not death asteroids.



The forecasted high for my third day is a 69 F.. he.. he.. aha... The forecasted low is a 63 with about 30% chance of precipitation during the day and night. The average pressure over the three day period was about 30.11 with the pressure incresing over the three day period.

The average wind speed over the three day period was 21.67 km/ hr with the wind speed increasing over the three day period.

Now for some 8 bit looking clouds in a satellite image of Wellington.

 Yargh, der be some clouds i foresee.. ish. they're about 40km away so i guess that could be considered farish. There are mostly a mix of low warm and cold clouds. There is a light rain to the north. I knew there would be some cause New Zealands a rainy ass place.

New Zealands full of veggies and mountains and hobbit type shiz. There's two lakes to the west and a bunch of parks and reserves which makes me quite jelly.

Surface Analysis

Got high pressure to the southeast and a cold front running across New Zealand headed towards another high. We got dem isobars of 1008 to 1028.

Here's a closer look at that cold front hitting the whole country... I means its kinda small but yeah its kinda a big dealish. This map we isobars of 1005 to 1020.